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Update: Oh what a long strange trip this has been.

Here is the short of it; I started this 6 months ago, I got better.

Where it is now.


Where it started, it is figuratively a piece of shit.



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I've been working on a female anatomical sculpt for a while, but I've decided I'm going to turn it into a full blown character. I usually can walk away from a piece and come back to see all the problems that I've missed, but it's been a few days and I'm at the point where it looks alright to me. But before I go onto surface detailing, I figured I'd get some outside eyes on it to see what I'm overlooking. The hands and feet are still rough, I usually fix those up at the detailing phase.





And I asked this at GA, but do people think turn tables are a good way too showcase a model? I like how you can make out the form, but it can be a little vague and disorienting. Thoughts?

Thanks in advance.

for me the body needs more work ...the back is looking more like a male at the moment...

but the face is nice ...i like the paintover...only critique watch out the area under the nose...the noseholes are sticking a bit out ...

Not sure if it's intentional, but she looks "boyish" and a bit like either a 14 yr old girl or a malnourished 20 yr old. Depends on what you're going for I guess.

Turnaround is helpful I think, lets me see all angles.

No offense, but at the moment this "female" character looks like a male with breasts...and no penis. The face, hands, and rest of the body come across as being more masculine than feminine. I recommend you use reference of some kind if you need help with the human figure.

Besides the masculine-feminine issues, your proportions are good from the neck-down. The head seems a little big. How old is this character supposed to be?

You have some nice modelling skills Agree on the comments here: the model looks generically male apart from the breasts and lack of penis, however, I think this is mainly attributle to facial features.

Here's a paintover to emphasize the facial area which also includes the shoulder and neck, it's not perfect but might help a little...

If you can afford it...

http://philippefaraut.com/store/refe...male-head.html

http://philippefaraut.com/store/refe...anes-head.html

This shit is awesome for any 3d modeler. You can still use the thumbnail to get an idea of the proper anatomy. At least so you know how NOT to make your women look like men.

I disagree with Shad0wForce and GCMP. The face in particular is pretty realistic, its just not steriotypical and styalized like most female faces we see around here. The body has elements that look like a 35+ year old (would suit the face) but the breasts are too perky for the overall form. Also the slope of the shoulders is pretty ugly though and I can't help feeling they are a little narrow. There are a lot of different body types out there and your anatomy looks plauseable, just not attractive. If thats your goal (I would like to see that more often) then tweak the breasts to make them a little larger and sag more and maybe sort out the sloping shoulders (somewhat masculine as they are) and maybe broaden them a little.

I must agree with Xaltar here, about the shoulders. And everything else as well. Good job on a different type of lady.

Yeah, it looks like a female to me, I wouldn't change too much unless you want to go for the super feminine look. I mean, the facial proportions seem a little long, but it doesn't bother me too much. Although it actually kind of freaks me out, because the face with that hair on it looks like my mom did when she was younger, so...er...yeah.

Also do you plan on resolving the feet? It seems like they're a little formless, If you plan on putting shoes on her I probably wouldn't bother, because the general shape looks right and shoes distort feet anyway.

Also has far as turn table stuff goes, it seems okay, I like them because you can see the light move across the form, however for better criticism I think you should still post up basic shots and angles as well.

I think it looks fine. You should probably post some reference images to make people happy people.

Holy shit that was a lot of crits to work through, first off thanks a ton to everyone for the help. And now after a couple days, time to post how it got put to use.

I suppose I should start off by addressing the "IT'S A TRANNY, IT'S A TRANNY!" comments. Definitely the biggest culprit was the pelvis being too wide in the front and too narrow on the sides. So after some extensive research (ie. pictures of vaginas) I hope that area became a little less gender confused. The other thing that was kind of weird was just the whole way the weight of the lower half compared to the upper half. I fattened her hips and thighs up a bit, so hopefully everything balaces nicer.

As for the face, Eric was right that this is supposed to be tom boyish, which I suppose is the reason some people throw up red flags as it looking male. But do remember that masculine qualities are not exclusive to males. Women can have prominent chins and big noses too, which makes it hard for me to tell if what some of you are saying is "this is anatomically incorrect" or "this is not the the feminine ideal". I appreciate all the comments, but if all characters had perfect features, well that'd be pretty boring.

All that being said, I did reshape it to be less rectangular and I softened the chin slightly, I'll post a close up later when it's further along.


TL: DR version. Vaginas.

Removed for bandwidth

And for more specific comments. And again, thanks to everyone for the comments.

Spatz: Thanks, I went back and fixed the nose issue, hopefully I'll have a close up soon.
Shad0wForce: Somewhere between 15 and 45
Titus S: I appreciate the comment, but I try to not use other artists interpretation of anatomy as reference unless my intent is to replicate their work.
Xaltar: I actually shrunk the boobs, so maybe that helps. And I'm curious, what does the age look to you now?
Neo_God: There is a joke to be made about your mother, but I'm not touching it. And feet and hands are still rough, they are next if people think I've resolved the core body issues.
gammaslam: I wish I had just a few, but I have hundreds of megabytes of references that I've been sifting through. Probably part of the problem is that she is an amalgamation of hundreds of different people.

Now keep it coming, Can always use new eyes to tell me all the ways that I suck.

She looks really young now. Hips haven't grown out yet, boobs neither.

The skull shape is really throwing me off.

Good progress overall.

For some reason, with the hair, she looks even more like a man. It's actually the face that makes me think more man than the body. The body is pretty straight up and down, but some women are, and lack curves, but there is something about the back of the legs and the shape of the back, that seem quite manly. The shoulders and the shape of the buttocks look like that of a woman though.

And the face, with or without hair, honestly looks like a man to me, a man with a fairly "soft" face, but still a man.

If you're going for a somewhat androgynous character, it's great, but if I just saw a head shot with no info, I would think man for sure.

Lots of women have extremely manly faces in reality. Generally we don't notice because we're busy looking at stereotypically feminine things like long hair and the style of clothing. Voice is a big distractor too.

I think if the purpose is to make a realistic everyday female then the face is pretty good now that the jawline is less square.

That said, the hips are still too thin. They just look totally squashed at the top. Also the upper arms are too short and lower arms too long.

put long eyelashes on her, that can make anything girly.

Forget THIS:

Originally Posted by GCMP

Here's a paintover to emphasize the facial area which also includes the shoulder and neck, it's not perfect but might help a little...

GCMP...are you kidding...

the left picture looks like a real person - give her textures and she is great...

GCMP is right , the paintover is heading in the right direction.
widen her hips, give more shape to her calves, thin the ankles slightly. narrow the waist slightly.
women are curvey and even androgynous fems still have more feminine attributes than male

the feet seem really flat like flippers.

The head needs a lot of work, it just looks like 'vaguely' feminine male popstar like phil oakey from the human league


sorry to be harsh . the model does have soem nice bits in and you can obviously model

Hey boss,

maybe this helps, the individual parts are not bad, but the overal is off, making it weird.

What you can try is go back to a low sub level and grab the move tool, start pulling out the shoulders, the iliac crest? seems low, get the back of the head fixed, things like that.
Do this in an exaturating way so you step out of your zone,
then when you look back at what you have now, you'll go .. awww why didnt i see that!

Originally Posted by Spatz

Forget THIS:



GCMP...are you kidding...

the left picture looks like a real person - give her textures and she is great...

I agree. The paintover is far to manga-ish imo. I guess what makes it appear male for the most poeple here are the quiet big nostrils and maybe also the short hair ;-)

Here's an interesting link: http://www.uni-regensburg.de/Fakulta...lish/index.htm

I'd say keep it close to what you have but make the neck thinner.

Yes, some women have more of manly body. But by the look of this one (esp the shape of butt, thigh, shoulders), she looks like somebody who is naturally slim and does not work out. thus should have a but of slight flabbiness going on belly and butt.
... or you can go the other end of spectrum and tone her up like a boyish athlete.

I feel as though the back of the skull is a bit small. Other than that I think what you have is pretty anatomically accurate as far as I can tell and I'm really digging the simple female features. The face has feminine style to it, she wouldn't stop traffic, but I definitely see a woman.

I'm all for non-cookie cutter female characters. But I do agree that since this is a woman, you need to give her more feminine features. You don't necessarily have to go to the extreme that GCMP shows, but slimming down the neck and nose would help tremendously. Right now she looks very masculine, and honestly I wouldn't have known she was a woman if you didn't have the full body turn table.

Originally Posted by acc

Lots of women have extremely manly faces in reality. Generally we don't notice because we're busy looking at stereotypically feminine things like long hair and the style of clothing. Voice is a big distractor too.

I think if the purpose is to make a realistic everyday female then the face is pretty good now that the jawline is less square.

That said, the hips are still too thin. They just look totally squashed at the top. Also the upper arms are too short and lower arms too long.

I disagree. I live in Brighton, England, not only are there lots of hippyish, studenty types with no make up etc, there are lots of lesbians. I see non typical girls everyday, you can still tell they are girls, even those with short hair and no make up and boyish clothes.

The odd lesbo you see, with short hair and no make up and seriously can't tell whether they are a man or a woman, they are the exception.

By the way, I'm someone who appreciates non typical girly girl types, I hate too much make up, I am strongly opposed to fake tits, I don't mind short hair on girls, and I also quite like girls just wearing jeans and a tshirt etc. But the facial structure on this model is more masculine than feminine. Don't get me wrong, it's a good model, but incredibly androgynous, with the face in particular veering more towards masculine than feminine.

Take the crits about the face seriously. It looks very masculine. GCMP's paintover is beyond ridiculous, but that comes from inexperience as an artist, not from having a bad eye -- he's got a point that this is beyond suspension of disbeleif level of masculinity.

Additionally, something is seriously awkward and un-feminine about the ribcage and shoulders. Everything seems very squared and non-gestural and masculine. Neck is huge, back is boxy. Even extremely tomboyish women are still artistically beautiful things, full of gesture lines and curves -> http://mikeresponts.files.wordpress....imcouture1.jpg

all that aside, the details of the anatomy and execution of the sculpt are fantastic. I would love to see this shape up into something amazing, just remember that realistic does not mean boring